Save the Smombies: App-Assisted Street Crossing

Using a smartphone while walking in urban traffic is dangerous. Pedestrians might become distracted and have to split their attention between traffic, walking and using the mobile device. The increasing level of automation in vehicles introduces novel challenges and opportunities for pedestrian-vehicle interaction, e.g external displays attached to automated vehicles. However, these approaches are hardly scalable and fail to provide clear information in a multi-user environment. We investigate whether a smartphone app could provide individual guidance to enhance pedestrian safety in future traffic. To this end, we tested three app concepts in a user study (N=24) and found that on-screen guidance increases the frequency of successful crossing decisions significantly. In addition, all participants indicated that they would use the proposed system, preferably with an unobtrusive colored bar indicating the safest crossing decision in real-time. Integrating smartphones into the interaction between vehicles and pedestrians could increase situational awareness while crossing roads, solve the scalability problem and thus foster pedestrian safety in future traffic scenarios.